How to make Veggie Mole

Okay all you lazy ass eaters that claim you can’t cook, here’s a recipe that is super easy, quite tasty, and will more than surprise your microwave-ready friends. It’s a simple vegetarian mole recipe based on the stuff you can get from the grocery shelf, done veggie style. Sure, you can probably grind your own chiles, seeds, nuts, and chocolate, but where’s the easy in that?

35 Responses to How to make Veggie Mole

Updated since my cookbook version! And with instructive pictures instead of one long block of text. (You’d have liked the look on my face when I asked L. for your recipe, and he forwarded this heck of long email to me.)

Oh, someone’s looking to pick a fight! 😉 But I do understand why some don’t like tofu: most places serve it tasting like crap. Think of it this way, it’s just an ingredient that needs to be prepared properly (it’s not really an end product, not for me at least) and can be made to taste good or bad depending on the cook and recipe. Though I did have a friend that would eat raw tofu with a bit of olive oil, que asco! It’s like eating flour out the bag, tastes better if you use it in some baked goods. But maybe you don’t like flour, cookies, and cake as well? You probably hate lil’ puppies and kitties too.

Supposedly, one of the favorite meals of the ancient samurai would be to eat raw, cold tofu with a shot of soy sauce, a pinch of sugar and some finely chopped green onion on top. I was intrigued and tried it. It is really good! Very simple, clean tasting food.

Ah, the “free” drinking glass that comes with each jar of mole, ha ha ha! Acutally, I love stuff like that as I am naturally frugal but also appreciate the efficiency of such things. With only the tiniest of changes to the packaging (a crimped on lid as opposed to a threaded lid) it goes from an object to be disposed of to a completely useful an acceptable household item. I only wish more things were like this, what a waste most things are. It’s tragic since with just a little forethought and effort the whole paradigm can be turned around. Unfortunately ours is a society of conspicouous consumption. Snobs and yuppies (and who isn’t these days!) would probably scoff at someone whose glassware consisted mainly of repurposed jars. They better not look in my cupboard! I have a friend in New Mexico who when he visits me refuses to drink out of anything else but ex-mole jars. He doesn’t cook Mexican so he doesn’t have a source. When they start to pile up (I try not to have more than about 8 of these glasses at any given time) I carefully pack them in a box and ship them out to him. He loves them.

Lastly, on the note of drinking out of jars a story about my father. In the 70s we once went to a restaurant that thought it would be cute to serve their beverages in mason jars. This so perturbed my dark and brooding father that he immediately had us all leave the establishment immediately. He got very angry, which wasn’t unusual for him in those days, but what was strange was that his anger usually wasn’t over such seemingly trivial events. What triggered his anger was what he perceived as their flippant and bourgeois (my words, definitely not his!) attitude towards the trappings of poverty. He grew up drinking from old jars out of necessity (as a child of the Great Depression) and didn’t find much novelty in paying for the privilege so many years later. Needless to say I do not serve him beverages in mole glasses! Although they look so good I bet he wouldn’t even realize it. And he most certainly doesn’t know what mole is.

Bob, great story!
We’d also save and drink out of old jelly jars. They often had cartoon characters on them, plus I think they were ridge-less.
The one thing I hate that my family would save were those huge plastic soda cups from 7-11. My mom still has some that are like 20 years old, gross!

Good stories Bob! I bet your Dad wouldn’t want to go to this thing then:The Ghetto Gourmet. From their site:
“The dishes were fresh, creative, beautifully presented and deliciously juxtaposed with the rustic-urban setting.” Here’s a good pic. Theres a point where being resourceful and making do with what you have crosses over into a patronizing irony by the privileged, these folks seem to have catapulted over that line. Poor also means trying your best to have small luxuries, like tables and chairs, which these fools could easily have acquired. Nothing like spoiled kids playing at being poor!

I’ve been trying to become a vegetarian but… I couldn’t make up my mind
there’s so many good food that I didn’t know you could cook without meat, and now that I see the mole mmmmmmmmmm… (I don’t want my boyfriend to call me a cementery anymore haha)

I’m worried however, if all of the commercial mole sauces you refer to are actually vegetarian. For instance, the Dona Maria ones list “Natural flavors” at the end of the ingredients list. Seems to me lard is a natural flavor.

THANK YOU! for that…seriously….the mole recipe…i think i’ll substitute the tofu for chicken, but mole is a dish ive been going crazy over…

i do have one question tho..and dont laugh!! ive messed around with it before..and i’ve tried different moles from stores..and until i bought the ‘la costena’ mole with an easy twist off lid- i swear i cant open the other jars!! lmao…is there a trick im missing here????? the other ones have like a tin thats embedded into the lip of the jar..i tried crakn the damned things on the side of my counter…stickin a knife along the underside of it…dear lord….

It’s good you asked charlotte! I know a few people have had a problem getting those open, but just use a bottle opener (like the kind on the other end of a can opener) and loosen it up a bit at a time, going around the rim.

Sound great.
I was looking for a tofu posole recipe and found a tofu mole.
This is great.
Sounds delicious.
Sad about Dona Maria’s having dead animals in it though.
Yuck. She was my favorite.
Also, years ago I bought a Dona Maria jar of mole in Mexico and a nifty opener came with it.
Works great!!

Really Funny and Cool step-by-step on making the tofu mole. I will try this soon. thanks for the inspiration and Long Live mole “drinking glasses” . I used to drink from jelly jars as a kid at my grandma’s house. There is a great honor in reusing objects for other purposes. We were too poor for tupperware so we reused margarine and cool whip containers. we weren’t too poor for food, just the luxury items like drinking glasses and tupperware. Thanks for the great tips!!

great fun just reading your recipes. trying the tofu mole, sounds great. thank you for not just showing your recipes, pictures but the commentary as well.
why don’t you show pictures of yourself cooking (someone can take your pic while you cook, so you don’t burn the food…) that way we can see how much fun you are having.
bueno ya, gracias por tu recetas y tu historias.

Yepa Yepa! I was so happy to make this the other day until I read correctly about using frozen/thawed tofu… Shame on me for rushing to Big Savers w/o reading the recipe right.. Anyway, I am on it with my tofu freezing up like a dish of revenge 😉
Will keep you posted on how it turns out! Gracias! 🙂